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mac pro (early 2008) makes a hum like a fridge, is it normal?

student_trap

student_trap

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Mar 14, 2005
1,879
0
'Ol Smokey, UK
hey guys,

just a quick question. Basically my mac pro makes a humming noise which i can only really compare to that of a fridge. I think that it is coming from the front bottom of the tower, although i cant be 100% sure.

Is this normal???:confused:
 
student_trap said:
hey guys,

just a quick question. Basically my mac pro makes a humming noise which i can only really compare to that of a fridge. I think that it is coming from the front bottom of the tower, although i cant be 100% sure.

Is this normal???:confused:
Click to expand...

Normal. I would say not. I have four hard drives in mine and it is whisper quiet. I don't hear a thing.
 
No, it's not normal. If it wasn't for the white light on the front of mine, I wouldn't know it was on.
 
3 seconds after boot-up, mine is silent unless i put a disc in the optical drive.

i will occasionally hear a quiet hard drive "grind" when moving several GB of data.
 
hmmm, could anyone else possibly comment? I shall try to be a little more specific. the noise doesn't seem to be coming from the hard drives, but from where the power cable goes in and to the left of the ram slots.

it sounds like the humming you hear in a room where there is a fridge:confused:

I am on the 13th day of my 14days moneyback policy and this is already my second machine. If this sound is common to all mac pros i will keep it, but i dont think that it is acceptable to do so if other machines truly are without such a hum
 
I would describe mine as the distant hum of a outdoor diesal generator.

hmm if I listen closely the front fans arent that noisy although audible higher pitched.
I think its the large back fan that is sort of rumbling
 
No, its not normal. My mac pro doesnt make any hum noise that sounds like a refrigerator. When I put my ear next to the front bottom of the mac pro all I hear the gentle woosh sound of the fan.
 
Often times a hum (or other low frequencies) are not present if you're close to the source and noticeable when you go closer to the corners of a room. You probably do have a slight hum but its inaudible where you're sitting.

jjahshik32 said:
No, its not normal. My mac pro doesnt make any hum noise that sounds like a refrigerator. When I put my ear next to the front bottom of the mac pro all I hear the gentle woosh sound of the fan.
Click to expand...
 
My 2.8 Octo does the same. I have installed 2 Seagate Barracudas muself.
On mine it´s the front panel that makes the noise. If I push it slightly inwards with my finger it stops. Very annoying. I haven´t had time to contact the shop due to too much work.
Is this what you have?
 
yoak said:
My 2.8 Octo does the same. I have installed 2 Seagate Barracudas muself.
On mine it´s the front panel that makes the noise. If I push it slightly inwards with my finger it stops. Very annoying. I haven´t had time to contact the shop due to too much work.
Is this what you have?
Click to expand...

touching the case doesn't seem to do anything, but if you want to know what it hears like, just go into the nearest kitchen, and turn everything off so that all that can be heard is the refrigerator, and that is what my mac pro sounds like (although not as loud!). I am beginning to think that the noise is coming more significantly from where the power cable goes in.

Either way seems to be fairly common so far
 
contoursvt said:
Often times a hum (or other low frequencies) are not present if you're close to the source and noticeable when you go closer to the corners of a room. You probably do have a slight hum but its inaudible where you're sitting.
Click to expand...

I hear the gentle hum (I guess you would call it) of the front fan but its nothing close to what a refrigerator sounds like. In hum I mean it sounds like a woosh kind of very very whisper sound of the fan.

I guess only hum I could really hear is the harddrive powered on? But that's only if I opened up the mac pro and put my ear next to the hdds.
 
To the OP: My MP (2.8GHz Octo with the 8800GT graphics card, stock Seagate 320GB HD, 3 x 750 Samsung Spinpoint F1s, 2GB original Apple RAM, 8GB OWC RAM) also make that (low) humming fridge sound. It seems to come from the back of the case.

Actually I've just been to a Mac reseller. I checked out one of their MPs on display with the stock ATI card (which should be less noisy than the 8800GT). I could hear the front fan quite easily, and I could also hear a humming sound. And that machine was idle. Thus I'm certain that there's nothing wrong with my MP.

However my 8800GT graphics card makes a lot more noise, and that is my concern (I'll look into ways of making it less audible). Also my HDs cause a lot of resonance, which should be easily solved. I'm not sure if it matters, but my MP was assembled in Ireland (I read elsewhere on this forum that someone had bad experience with the MPs assembled in Ireland).

I tossed away the original shipping box for my MP shortly after receiving it from the Apple online store, and I don't have any intentions anyway to return my MP (it works great - temps are always very low and the fans are happily spinning at their default settings). I need my MP for daily work, so returning it and waiting for a replacement is not an option anyway. Takes too much time.
 
student_trap said:
touching the case doesn't seem to do anything, but if you want to know what it hears like, just go into the nearest kitchen, and turn everything off so that all that can be heard is the refrigerator, and that is what my mac pro sounds like (although not as loud!). I am beginning to think that the noise is coming more significantly from where the power cable goes in.

Either way seems to be fairly common so far
Click to expand...

I can almost guarantee you've got resonance. I've got a fridge on the other side of the wall behind my computer and for the longest I thought it was the fridge, but I began to notice it was only occuring during my normal computer usage. How many drives do you have? I started getting it when I installed my 3rd drive.
 
I think I know what you're talking about and I think it's the power supply. It's right near where the power cord goes in and I can hear mine when I turn my mac off. Kind of a faint buzzing sound like a fridge makes. I'd say it's normal though.
 
benpatient said:
3 seconds after boot-up, mine is silent unless i put a disc in the optical drive.

i will occasionally hear a quiet hard drive "grind" when moving several GB of data.
Click to expand...

This is exactly my experience, silent after startup until I use the optical drive.
 
Brandon3003 said:
I think I know what you're talking about and I think it's the power supply. It's right near where the power cord goes in and I can hear mine when I turn my mac off. Kind of a faint buzzing sound like a fridge makes. I'd say it's normal though.
Click to expand...

Seconded.

Is your mac plugged into a UPS of any kind? I know a very large number of PSUs will make an odd buzzing noise when running off UPS power, this may be constant with models featuring AVR.

It may also indicate problems with your power lines (dirty/unstable/abnormal power), or just a problem with the power supply itself.
 
FireSlash said:
Seconded.

Is your mac plugged into a UPS of any kind? I know a very large number of PSUs will make an odd buzzing noise when running off UPS power, this may be constant with models featuring AVR.

It may also indicate problems with your power lines (dirty/unstable/abnormal power), or just a problem with the power supply itself.
Click to expand...

Yep I am using a UPS which probably explains why I hear it, doesn't really bother me though :p
I can only hear it when the computer is off anyways and I keep mine on all the time.
 
My Mac Pro is absolutely silent, with the slight exception of a disc spinning up, or excessive drive use (I have 4 hard drives in here.)


-Bryan
 
My MacPro is chugging like a tired fridge too... i can hear it down the hall. it's driving me crazy...

I have 4 drives - the noise is coming from the enclosed area at the top rear of the MP... where the power supply is housed, above drive bays 3 & 4.

when i remove those drives the noise continues.

dampening the casing anywhere doesn't help.

this really sucks!
 
I think it could be just the fan coming off the ati hd2600 xt.

I noticed I hear some kind of buzzing/fridge kind of noise but (I know its not good to do this) when I put my finger on the fan of the ati hd2600 xt to stop it and the whole mac pro is completely silent.

I'm getting the ati 3870 in a few days and hopefully it is quiet like the nvidia 8800gt.
 
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